FMLA and Physical Therapy

Library HR

I have been reviewing the regs as to how they relate to physical therapy. Section 825.115(e)(2) lists physical therapy. We have a number of employees having this every year and a lot of them make up their time. How do you handle employees having physical therapy?

NaeNae55

I believe this depends on several factors. Is the physcial therapy just FMLA, or is it Work Comp related? Do you normally allow employees to make up missed time?

We allow employees to make up missed time whenever possible, so making up time for physical theapy would be allowed unless the time of their appointments, or the number of them, caused a particular hardship.

Library HR

Thank you. I think my basic question is do you give FMLA every time an employee has physical therapy regardless of whether they have the ability to make up time. Because at the time you need to designate the leave, you cannot be certain that they will be able to make up the time. Sometimes what is causing them to have the therapy precludes them being able to stay at work to make up the time.

NaeNae55

Ah, your question is more complicated than I first realized.

I think it comes down to culture and business needs. We don't have a lot of FMLA users, and we do allow people to make up their time. If we had someone who needed a lot of physical therapy but wanted to make up their time, I would probably put something in writing. It would clarify the employee had to make up their time before the time off or on the same day as the therapy, and if not, it they would not be able to make it up. So for example, an employee might have an appointment on Thursday at 3:300 (we close at 4:30). They would need to make up the hour before 3:30 Thursday, or it would be FMLA time off. They would not be able to make it up afterwards. We would probably be ok, but we would want to avoid any suggestion of designating FMLA retroactively.

I am sure others on here have run into this situation and have better ideas. Frank? Other Forumites?